CfP UPDATE: What is “shared”? Architectural Heritage in Conflict:

Fabrications invites papers for a special issue (Vol. 34, No. 2) guest edited by Savia Palate and Panayiota Pyla (University of Cyprus) on the theme of ‘What is “shared”? Architectural Heritage in Conflict’. Papers are due on February 16, 2024. 

Scholars typically describe heritage as intrinsically dissonant or difficult, particularly in conflict territories, highlighting the socio-political differences that ascribe architectural value to buildings and sites. This special issue focuses on the potentiality of architectural heritage in conflict territories to become shared, contemplating whether “sharedness” may be possible at all. It particularly focuses on the intangible value narratives of architectural history can offer to speak of what may be shared in terms of architectural heritage.

What can be considered shared about architectural heritage in conflict territories, in what manner, and why? How can architectural history, and methodological explorations of writing the past, shed light on the complexities that surround the question of who defines modes of sharedness? To what extent can fluidity and uncertainty of meanings challenge the way architecture becomes heritage, dictating what is to be remembered and what it is to be forgotten? Can we speak about sharedness without forging commonalities and homogenisation, but by utilising the lens of architectural history to reveal the multiple frictions, narratives, interpretations, and stories that have remained hidden or paused on a particular time-space agency?

Papers may relate to the contested geopolitical, cultural, and historical constructs of the built environment as heritage in tangible and intangible terms, and across various periods and geographies. We welcome papers that interrogate competing narratives of nationalism and identity; oscillations between remembrance and oblivion; and preservation practices that experiment with potentialities of inclusiveness and alternative collaborations in framing the shared in architectural heritage.

Questions about the special issue can be directed to the guest editors: 

Savia Palate 

Panayiota Pyla For submission instructions and portal, go to: https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/rfab20